Daily Trip 05 November 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs

One could not have asked for a better day on the water with the whales giving us some spectacular encounters on every trip of the day.

We’re still enjoying the low waters that come with spring tide so we launched a little later today out of Gansbaai Harbour, hugging the coastline towards the shallows. On the way, we had a treat for the twitchers with a few White Chinned Petrel and a Shy Albatross joining us for a bit as we made our way around Danger Point. Only a short distance from the mainland, the HMS Birkenhead lays around 30m under the surface of the ocean on the pinnacle which caused it’s demised. After passing this area, we found our very first Southern Rights close to Kleinbaai harbour and watched them for a bit before heading on over to the shallows to see what lay in store for us there. We were not disappointed when we came across a lob tailing beauty, who is arguably one of the most stunning Southern Right Whales of the season. This sub adult had white speckles all over its tail and a large portion of its back, with these distinct markings making the whale look kind of like the Milky Way during new moon. As if this astounding beauty was not enough, this whale was a really performer, lob tailing enough to put us all on a bit of a high! Nothing could top what we had just seen, so we moved on over to Slashfin where we had a Bronze Whaler Shark show his face. We spotted some African Penguins on Dyer Island next, with our last stop being at an empty Geyser Rock.

Trip 3 commenced from Kleinbaai harbour and saw us heading straight to where we left the whales, off the sandy shores of Uilenkraalsmond, which is among one of the oldest camping grounds in the Overberg region. We spotted a large Sunfish before moving on to our marine mammals, with these dude coming straight up to the surface to  indulge in a Box Jellyfish right before our eyes, exposing his strange mouth out of the water whilst going in for the kill. We spent some time with the whales next, watching them cruise slowly through the bay before spotting a breaching calf. The whales were incredibly vocal all day, creating the strangest noises with their blow holes as they lay at the surface, and we got to hear a few of these strange sounds on this trip. After watching some awesome Southern Rights, we spotted a Bronze Whaler at Slashfin and the stopped at Dyer Island. A few penguins and a thousand seals later, we moved back towards the harbour to pick up our last group of clients.

Trip 4 had incredible breaching action with at least 4 whales going at it again and again and again. At this time of year, we’re starting to see the claves figure out this breaching thing which causes them to do it a bit more frequently but, we even had an adult launch herself out the water towards the end of the sighting. We had 2 unidentified calves also breach super close to the boat and our very last whale of the day was the sub adult with the Milky Way on its tail. We spend some quality time with our adorable Cape Fur Seal colony after this before heading home, finding a little African Penguin along the way.

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